


The Night We Never Met

by Indybaggins



Category: Whose Line Is It Anyway? RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Closeted Character, Dysfunctional Family, Gay Bar, M/M, Masturbation, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-14
Updated: 2008-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:11:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indybaggins/pseuds/Indybaggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, a young Ryan never got into comedy but became a woodshop teacher instead. Struggling with his sexuality, he goes looking for a one-night stand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night We Never Met

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/indybaggins/media/b23fadetoblack2008.png.html)   
> 

 

 

Ryan softly hummed a song he had heard on his radio that morning, something slow and pleasant. He intently traced his left hand over a board of wood, the uneven surface catching on the slight touch of his callous hands. The low sound resonated in his empty classroom.

It was early still, besides his humming both the hallways and the room itself eerily quiet. He liked it that way, strangely this had always been the time of the day he enjoyed the most, the one time where he could work silently and alone. There were no stumbling sounds of feet approaching yet, no shrill voices carrying through the air. No responsibility to be anyone, no disapproving stares if his hand wavered, if he hit a nail the wrong way and he had to pull it out again, oddly clumsy when he felt scrutinised. There was only silence, sometimes disrupted by the faint footsteps of one of his colleagues stepping to their own classrooms, preparing for the coming day, but they never came close, the distant sounds only adding to the sense of peace he felt. 

Working like this, really focusing on what he was doing, he had always felt he could _feel_ the wood and the small hitches the cutting had made in its natural structure better than he could see it. He had always been good at working with his hands, enjoyed the peace it gave him, and this very job was no different. If he would have ever formulated it to himself, he would have said that the wood still felt alive under his touch, freshly cut from one of the large panels in the back, the air still heavy with the smell of it, tiny woodchips clinging to his pants, dust floating through the air and visibly mingling in the streams of sunlight pouring in through the windows. 

The first year Ryan had been given his very own classroom; he had taken off the horrible green curtains, and let in the sunlight. He had moved his desk to the edge of the room, so he could look on from the side. He had used some of his tools on the windows so they could open when the room got too stuffy (even though it was strictly against school policy). And he had gotten rid of the terrible lavender air fresheners, allowing the wood shop to smell like what it was supposed to: the soft and dusty, earthy smell of wood. 

Now, almost five years later, those were still the same things he got complimented on. “There is such a nice atmosphere in here Mr. Stiles” the parents would say when they came in, and he would make some joke in return, mostly about how he was a carpenter and not an interior designer, but still flattered none the less. And people would laugh, because it was hard to imagine him as anything else but the woodshop teacher, dressed in a standard grey jumpsuit, his large hands rough to touch, his handshake as they said goodbye strong and comfortable. 

Ryan himself had long ago stopped imagining himself as anything else but the wood shop teacher as well, but occasionally he would remember his younger self, practising silly faces in the mirror, proclaiming to anyone who would listen that he would become a comedian. He grinned a little at the thought, and put his hand on the metal work bench, cold and steady under his touch. His fingers took hold of a chewed-on pencil, maimed so badly it was barely discernable from the other pieces of wood, and put it between his teeth. 

Leaning in over the piece of wood, a natural grace to his movements when he moved as freely, as thoughtlessly as he did right then, he took the pencil to mark off every couple inches with small crosses, marking where it needed to be cut later by hands much less skilled and much less interested than his own. 

When he got up he stretched his back until he heard a faint popping sound, and looked around the deserted classroom. He located his cup of coffee, and absent-mindedly started sipping it while going over a schedule of how to make a birdhouse, preparing for his first class.

Soon there were students energetically opening the door, a few yelling “morning Mr. Stiles!” but even more ignoring him, as if he, at age twenty-seven already had become a part of the furniture of the wood shop, just a tool to stay there forever while the students moved on, changing year after year, going to places he didn’t think about, having lives where he often felt he had none, or at least barely. 

It was not as if he disliked teaching, in theory. But the couple bright and eager pupils he had, usually the pleasure of every teacher, still brought a sinking feeling to his stomach as their eager eyes followed every movement of his hands, eventually making them shake just slightly. He still felt a faint irritation at the ones who didn’t pay attention at all, just chatted while holding a hammer. The sounds he loved the most about his trade, the rhythmic knocking of hammers, the shrill sounds of the machines as they connected with the wood, all were drowned in an endless stream of words, needed explanations where he always had understood intuitively, commands, safety regulations, grades and rules and parent-teacher conferences. 

Saying he disliked the job would have been too much, he really was a skilled teacher, and very much liked among his students. But for the few quiet moments in the mornings, the chats with his colleagues, the fact that he rarely taught what he was required to and took a certain pride in doing so… it gave him very little happiness. 

So when at eight-thirty he routinely started his first class of the day with a grin and the words “Good morning, you can all go back to what you were working on last week…” he wasn’t imagining being anywhere else, he had no clue what he would want to do other than teach, but he wasn’t really _happy_ either, his grin more of a continuous habit than a truthful smile. As the morning dragged on, he monitored project after project, leaning over shoulders, correcting hands, listening to some of the hushed conversations, occasionally amusing him as he caught something he knew wasn’t intended for him. 

 

When lunch came around he was almost as happy about the fact as his students, racing them to the door and amicably chatting with them while waiting in the lunch line. As always, he took his tray to join some of the other teachers in the teachers’ room, all of them smoking like chimneys, busily chatting and complaining, eagerly greeting him and moving their chairs to make room as he came in. He sat down next to the math teacher (his best friend Gary) already in the middle of a conversation they had never needed to start to still be comfortable and funny. 

When one of the newer teachers came in he greeted her with a wink, and she grinned as she walked over. She was a pretty girl, petite with dark curls, originally the stand-in for their music teacher, Miss Anderson, who had been absent for months to take care of her dying mother, but now it looked like she would stay on board. 

“Patricia.” He greeted her as she came to sit next to him, her eyes brave and glowing as she said “Ryan! How are they treating you today?” 

He replied easily, she had been there for almost eight months now, and he had often joked with her in between classes or chatted by the coffee machine. He knew a couple teachers had tried to hit on her, but she was something of a wild one, ignoring all attempts. Much to the amusement of the rest of the staff, she _did_ continue to sit next to him at lunch every day, seemingly daring him to try something. 

So on days like today, quiet days where he felt he didn’t need to think about anything, he would carelessly return her smiles, crack jokes with the other teachers, do his impressions of the principal and his loose-fitting wig, and everything would feel normal, easy. But on some days he would fall silent in the middle of it, stare at the piece of bread he was eating, listen to the familiar voices of his colleagues around him, laughing, joking. And he would find the words almost on the tip of his tongue, the possibility so easily there, and he would come close to telling them. Telling that he didn’t want to date Patricia because he was gay, that he didn’t find women attractive at all, that he in fact never planned to get married and if they could stop asking please, but of course he never did. Eventually, some joke would catch his interest, someone would call his name, and the moment would be forgotten, everything back to normal. 

A couple times he had even come close to asking her out, and he didn’t think of it as lying, it wouldn’t be. He was sure he could love a woman in some way, he really did admire her spunk and sparkling eyes, but whether it was enough... He _had_ slept with a couple women in the past few years, usually either to prove something to himself or to them, his relationships always fading out soon after they begun. But deep down, where he hadn’t given up hope yet, he still wished that someday, somehow… 

So he excused himself when the bell rang and headed back towards his classroom, feeling her eyes on his back. “Some guy is gonna snatch her up if you don’t!” Gary had warned him, and he knew it was true. So he took extra care to smile at her before leaving, ignoring the subtle feeling of wrongness when he convinced himself he _would_ try something with her, maybe the next day… 

 

In the afternoon his classroom had heated up almost unbearably, the large windows on the west and south side letting in too much sun. He ordered one of the students to open up a window, but the occasional breeze floating in was hardly enough to cool it down at all. 

He was nearing the end of the class, bending over a piece of wood he was chipping, explaining how the angle of the one part should be aligned with the other, when his attention was sidetracked by two of his students in the back who were both trying to read something, their heads close together. He had almost ignored them, too focused on the explanation he was giving to care, but when a third joined them, whispering excitedly, he straightened up and walked over. 

When they realized he was watching them they went back to conspicuously building bird houses in various degrees of recognisability, the faint nervousness in their behaviour telling him all he needed to know. With a quick “aha!” he snagged a newspaper from under the first birdhouse and, with a faint amusement, the Hustler stuck between it. 

All three boys flushed a bright red as he held up the magazine for the entire class to see, and delivered a careful explanation of why pornography and electricity-powered tools really shouldn’t be used in the same room together, cracking up his class in the process. When he deemed them embarrassed enough he slammed the paper on his desk and returned to the wood chipping, explaining what he was doing it and why along the way. 

Late in the afternoon, when the sun had turned somewhat and the breeze coming through the windows was once again refreshing, he had let out his last class and swept away all the wood chippings of the floor. As he leaned in to close the window his hair ruffled faintly in the breeze, and he smiled. In all it had been an amusing day, and he felt content, looking out the window for a couple moments before sitting down behind his desk, sorting though some books and putting them in piles for the next day. When his eye fell on the paper and the Hustler peeking out from it he laughed a little to himself, considering the possibilities. He _had_ locked the door already, he had been planning on changing his work clothes for something lighter before he left, but it still felt like a bad idea… 

More out of curiosity than anything else, he picked up the magazine and paged through it briefly, letting the images of large-breasted women, bright-blonde or foxy red, sucking dick or licking each other, stain his eyes. He felt slightly pleased when he felt a faint stirring of arousal, it wasn’t like he had given up women for always and forever, they could still get him off sometimes… 

So he placed himself a little more comfortable behind his desk and started flipping through the pages at a slower rate, paying attention to the details until his mind was one flurry of images, breasts and bare skin and wanton eyes, and he wondered exactly what he could get away with in his own classroom... Unless someone walked up right to the window they couldn’t see him from where his desk was, he had made sure of that years ago for a whole different set of reasons, but now it proved to be effective… 

There was one girl one page twenty-seven, and she truly still looked like a _girl_ he thought, with dark curls and cherry-red lips, that reminded him of Patricia in a way, her one arm raised over her head and her other slipped into her black lacy panties. His eyes traveled over her body as he sighed and slowly lowered his hand under his desk, opening up the zipper to his jumpsuit and sliding his hand under the elastic of his boxers. 

Closing his eyes, he imagined her crawling under his desk and touching him, her red cherry lips curled around his dick, sucking him of languidly. He liked the image, and maybe it was that girl right then of maybe it was Patricia he was trying to think of, he didn’t care. He could feel her naked breasts rub against his legs, her tongue swirling around his dick… And it was hot enough to get him hard, hot enough to make him feel confident that he could come, given he could keep up the fantasy, so he opened up his zipper some more, pulled out his dick and started teasing himself in earnest. 

He could feel the pleasure build slowly, but at the same time he was aware of the chair he was sitting on, the fact that there could be someone knocking on his door, or worse, the window soon, that his was in his _classroom_ for god’s sake. He knew that he should feel guilty somehow, but he didn’t, the fantasy was legit after all; nobody would truly blame him for getting hot over a magazine…

So he looked down at the image of the girl again, trying to imagine her deep-throating him, almost gagging on his dick while she did. He found some vindictive part of him _liked_ the thought, twisting on his chair so he could touch himself better, upping up the friction, and he let it go a little further, imagining her to frown at him, dig her long nails into his thigh in protest, and finally move back, still gagging… When he realized what exactly he had been thinking he reprimanded himself and adjusted the image to have her smile again, looking loving, and yes it was Patricia, hell, maybe she would do it if he asked her to…

Spending a couple more minutes on that scenario though, (Patricia had entered his room, moved under his desk, she was sucking him off, sighing sweetly), he wasn’t even close to coming yet. 

He wanted to come faster, better, oh god he so deserved it, at home he never had the privacy for it anyway and so he gave in to what he had wanted to imagine, the image of the magazine on his desk forgotten. Instead he, so much easier, imagined threading his hands through short, cropped hair, holding onto a strong shoulder as he was being sucked off, feeling a hard dick bumping against his leg as he shifted, hearing the groans of a heavy voice around his dick, feeling stubble as his hand moved to rest on a cheek. 

And he ignored the voice in his head that yelled “gay”. Hell, he _had_ slept with a couple men in his life, he knew how fucking amazing it felt and he was fisting himself eagerly now, his palms sticky with sweat, his head thrown back at the feeling, orange tinges of light behind his eyelids as his head was tilted up to the sun. 

The man under his desk didn’t have a name, but he didn’t need to, he could smell his musk, feel his certainty at what he was doing, his strength in his movements alone, and that fact exited him more than anything else. When he came close to coming he could feel it would be _good_ , his body shaking on the edge of it and when the last imagine in his mind was the guy swallowing, fucking loving it too, moaning and groaning in his appreciation, he came hard, trying to catch most of it with his hand, wiping it off on his t-shirt. 

 

It took him the good part of a minute to come back to earth, fragments of imagined touches still ghosting over his body. When he slowly opened his eyes and looked around, he felt a dry spasm of a cry lock his throat and he coughed, briefly on the edge of tears before he in one strong movement zipped his pants again, got up and aimed the playboy towards the trash can. 

He _knew_ his life was fucked up to a certain extent. He had never thought he _wouldn’t_ be one of the brave ones, spending his life so safely hidden from all he longed for, living on the couple encounters he had had through the years. But for him to make it through the days, the months, the years, he had learned it was best not to think, not to think on anything and so he pushed it all away as he grabbed a change of clothes and headed to the showers near the gym. 

He carefully closed the classroom door behind him, still shaking a bit, and counted his soft steps on the tiled hallway floor, automatically nodding to the teachers he passed along the way, his eyes dull and his face closed. It was no use to think on anything… 

The shower ended up helping a lot to cool him down, and when he returned he made sure to empty out his trashcan in the janitors, took the abandoned paper on his desk and left, thinking to leave all the other work for the next day. 

 

By the time he parked in his driveway his thoughts had turned a different way altogether, once more calm and organised, a standard grin on his face. When he entered through the back door into the kitchen, he was greeted by the smell of freshly baked bread, and he walked up to the stove to give his mother a kiss on the cheek “Hi, Mom.” 

“How was work honey?” she asked lovingly, looking him over briefly before returning her attention on the apples she was laying onto a baking form to make apple pie. 

“Fine.” He smiled, snagging a piece of apple from the tray and happily eating it, leaning on the counter. 

“Oh” his mother spoke, this time eyeing her hands in order not to have to look at him, “Ray is coming by tonight” 

“Yeah?” he asked, not very excited, and then paused. Of all his brothers, Ray was both the only one who really _knew_ and the one he had never been able to get along with. Their oldest brother had moved to Canada when Ryan was still a kid, and lived up there with his family now. The second one, Richard, was in the middle of this third divorce and didn’t come around often. Ronald was still in the army, a colonel now, and the only one besides Ryan to still be single. The family _loved_ him of course, there was nothing nobler than being in the army from their point of view.

And Ray… Ray was the one with his perfect family now, wife, daughter and another kid on the way. The one who still lived in town in order to “be close to mom and dad”. The one who had beat him up more than all his other brothers had together growing up, the one who had seen him kiss a boy when he was seventeen and had told dad, the one who… 

“So…” he eyed his mother, knowing she had always known he didn’t get along with Ray, smiled and asked “You want me to cut the vegetables?” 

His mother laughed at that, stood on her tiptoes to ruffle up his hair in thanks, and soon he was expertly slicing up the tomatoes and the zucchini, putting them into small piles for later. 

A couple minutes later they heard the tell-tale sounds of his father coming home, the rumbling of an engine on the driveway, the front door being opened, the whoosh as he deposited his hat on the coat rack. Ryan’s mother ran out to greet him, but Ryan stayed in the kitchen, secretly adding some spices to the meatloaf his mother was baking, knowing it would taste better that way but not having the heart to tell her he had been doing it since he was ten. 

About half an hour later, dinner almost served (Ryan had finished garnishing the pie and was keeping an eye on the clock to take it out the oven in time) the doorbell rang and he could hear his mother answer, the low rumbling voice of his brother, and, gentler, his brother’s wife. He barely looked up from the cooking, thinking to greet them later, until he was attacked by the arms of a toddler around his leg, yelling excitedly “Uncle Ry! Uncle Ry!” 

He wiped off his hands on the apron he had put on and lifted the little girl, making her laugh as he tickled her side. With her on his arm he walked into the living room to face his brother and father, greeting them as jovially as he could, but returned to the kitchen to the remark of their father to Ray, “Ryan still likes to do the women’s work around here, hasn’t changed a bit.” 

He didn’t wait around to see the look in Ray’s eyes. He didn’t need to after all.

Dinner didn’t go any better, as Ray’s wife Wendy eyed him sweetly while he was bouncing their little girl on his knee, and told him he would make a great father some day… Or if Ray asked Dad if “Ryan still did that teaching thing these days” and “doesn’t it pay enough to leave the house yet?” 

He had known a zillion smart-ass remarks to that one, he did, but he had long given up fighting back over it, and as they said goodbye after dinner, he hugged his brother, briefly, and found that in some part of his mind he didn’t blame him, not truly. Ray had also been the one who had returned from the army and had been so much quieter suddenly, had lost so much of his standard Stiles cocky attitude. The one who had pushed him against a wall, outside, and had warned him “the army doesn’t take fags like you Ryan… they’ll kill you for it.” 

And Ryan hadn’t gone into the army, he had known he shouldn’t. Instead he had dropped out of high school, in the middle of his senior year, and had started working at their dad’s fish plant. If that had been right around the time he had been caught kissing _that_ boy, their neighbour who had long ago moved and had been his first in so many ways, no one had ever pretended to notice. 

Eventually he had started taking night classes in carpentry, he had always known he was good with his hands, and started teaching, knowing it would never live up to his brothers’ army careers, but hoping it was close enough. And now, so many years later, he was still right there, not as much living with his family as living for them, never good enough, and on some days he fucking hated it. 

 

And so it came that after they all had left he was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper he had brought from class. And that suddenly he changed his mind, thought ‘fuck it’ and ran upstairs, changed into his tightest pair of jeans and was out the kitchen door by the time his mother yelled “Ryan? Are you going out?” 

He figured he had deserved an escape as much as anything. To get drunk, not to have to think, and as he was being truthful he knew that what he was counting on was a little more than that, a blowjob maybe, a fuck, a stranger’s hand in a darkened alleyway at the very least. But being truthful was something that he had learned very hard to shy away from these days, so he just told himself that he would have a drink. Look around a bit. Maybe even dance a little because as horrible at it as he was, he enjoyed the feeling of the crowd none the less, heavy drumbeat beating under his breastbone, chests slick with sweat sliding past him. 

As he drove up to the parking lot he could tell it was fairly busy for a weeknight, his body already thrumming, coiled with anticipation as he drove around looking for a parking spot. Getting out of the car he stretched, grimacing at the horrible music spilling from the doorway already, and headed in. 

It was everything it had been all the times he had been there before, one single room coated in thick smoke, voices yelling over the deafening music, glistering brows and arms slick with sweat, flashes of naked flesh covered in spandex and leather, smiles and leers and entirely too many people in a much too small space. Ryan hated it, but yet he was there for the same reason every other guy was there. Sex. He went over to the bar to throw down something strong before anything else, but soon he was pulled along by a lithe little blonde and his hips were straining to match the rhythm, he was dodging enthusiastic arms and legs, drinks getting spilled everywhere. 

When Ryan found _him_ it was almost by accident, they bumped into each other and he was tall, almost as tall as Ryan was himself, with dark spiky hair and red, sensual lips. Ryan’s hand had been reaching out before he had even been completely aware of it, to steady the guy or to catch him, he wasn’t sure, but as their eyes met his intention must have been crystal clear because after a moment of careful, almost amused scrutiny, the guy cocked his head towards the bathrooms. Ryan just nodded, once. Yes. 

The struggle to get over there was almost painfully long, the crowd thick and alive, and he was forced to keep his eyes on the back of the guy’s head the entire time, following his lead, trying not to lose him. 

Once the door of the bathrooms fell shut behind them the difference in noise level was glorious, a white blanket of almost silence that left his ears ringing. A couple steps later there were the sounds of sucking and fucking, beautiful in the simplicity of the whole thing, beautiful in the way the guy in front of him looked around to see if he made it along and smiled. He looked almost too young in the fluorescent lighting, legs too thin and chest completely bare still, skin almost translucently pale but for the furious blush on his cheeks. His eyes were glittering when he looked at him, an obvious bulge in his dark leather pants and god, he was barely legal, Ryan thought. He almost hesitated, but then the guy closed in on him, right there in a corner of the white-tiled bathroom, four feet away from where a forty-something bearded guy was pissing, and Ryan _let him_. 

His back flush against the wall, Ryan looked into completely calm, almost mocking brown eyes, and he locked his hands around the guy’s neck and pulled him in. It started slow, which was different from all the other times he had done this in a way he didn’t care think about, with a gentle probe of tongue, and he opened his mouth easily. The guy unbuttoned Ryan’s shirt while they kissed, their chests sliding together now and Ryan rubbed his hand over the guy’s stomach, following the trail of dark hairs to the top button of his pants. 

He manoeuvered buttons and a zipper until he was holding a long, blood-flushed cock and he didn’t even think about the fact that they actually had an audience, that he was doing this to a guy he had never met before, because the guy was touching his cock as well, rubbing slender, slightly sweaty fingers over it, curling them into a space to push into. Then they were kissing again, slack-jawed and open-mouthed, wet and dirty and in those minutes it was the single best thing he had ever felt. 

The guy came first, spraying his hand and part of his jeans but god, he didn’t care, he needed this, he had needed it so badly, and he scrunched his eyes trying to hold back coming, nails raking the guy’s side, a hand kneading his ass, legs spread wide. But as the guy’s fingers teased the crack of his ass he lost it, buckling wildly into his hand, groaning and dragging him back into a kiss. He wanted just one more, just a bit more of moving together while his cock went soft, carefully held by gentle, slick fingers. 

Inevitably, the guy let go and turned away though, eyes still not rattled in the least, maybe a little sorrowful as he put his cock back in his pants, and went to wash his hands. He was gone through the white doors, leaving nothing behind but a small pink flyer that had fallen from his pocket near Ryan’s feet, letting in a sliver of loud music and chatter with him as he left. Ryan had wiped his hand on his jeans, feeling too spent to move now, the world too bright and wooden, too shallow. Looking at the pink piece of paper, he found he wanted it. He wanted to remember this guy, this boy really, even if it was in a carelessly fallen scrap. So he bent and took it, hands still shaking a little, and put it in his pocket. 

He left soon after that, the dancing tiresome, the boy nowhere to be found (even though he told himself he didn’t look, not really). The drive home was silent but bearable now, the thought of going home no longer oppressing but something to be accepted, a truth to live with. He was undressing in his bedroom, emptying the pockets of his jeans before throwing them in the hamper, when he looked at the pink paper again. He didn’t open it until he was completely undressed and in bed, already half asleep, but when he did he was stunned for a second. The flyer was neatly folded but crumpled as if it had been with the owner for a long time already and announced in cheery, bold lettering: “Improv 101. First lesson free!” 

Ryan smiled.

 

 

 

 


End file.
